In recent years, the Danish group Maersk has transported several cargoes of illegal timber from Mozambique to China by sea, reveals an investigation carried out by journalists in Maputo and Denmark and published yesterday.

"The company transported illegal timber from Mozambique to China several times between 2019 and 2021," write the Danish newspaper Danwatch and Zitamar News, based in Maputo and London, referring to shipments totaling thousands of tons.

The consultation of documents confirmed several shipments, such as one on February 4, 2020, when a container ship owned by the Danish giant arrived at the port of Ningbo, in China, with 255 tons of illegal timber on board from Beira, in Mozambique.

"More specifically, whole, unprocessed trunks of the reddish-brown tropical tree species Nkula, which is only found in a few African countries and is estimated to be close to extinction," says the report, quoted by Lusa.

In January 2020, two other Maersk ships arrived at the same port in China with 4,000 tons of illegal timber from Mozambique, yet another piece of data on Chinese imports that Danwatch and Zitamar News obtained from C4ADS, a US data collection organization focused on illicit trade and global security.

There are also records for 2019 and 2021, with these and other cargoes of Nkula, Mondzo and Chanato, all valuable varieties of wood and on the Mozambican authorities' list of native species.

The Danish giant, which has not denied having carried out this transportation, is not expressly breaking the law, explain the authors of the article after consulting Mozambican law and experts in the field, but they denounce a practice that the group says it condemns and that it does so by circumventing the law.

Maersk recognizes that it has a responsibility to ensure that the cargo on the ships is legal, but is careful to point out that it is up to the authorities to approve a product for export.

This is because Mozambique's law on timber exports only says that the export of unprocessed timber from native species is not allowed, but the ban makes no reference to transportation or logistics.

In its latest sustainability report, Maersk writes that it is "particularly concerned with curbing the illegal timber trade" and that it is its policy "not to tolerate the transportation of wild animals and plants prohibited by international or national legislation", the article reads.

"We are aware that there are challenges, but it is a complex area," Maersk wrote in an email response to Danwatch and Zitamar News, stating that it believes it is doing what it can to track cargo on board its ships.

Denmark's ambassador to Mozambique between 2011 and 2015, Mogens Pedersen, who was consulted as part of this investigation, assured that the shipping giant has long been aware of the risk of its container ships being used to transport illegal timber from Mozambique to China.

Two of the exporters who shipped "tropical" timber out of Mozambique on the MAERSK DOUALA and MAERSK NACALA have since been caught breaking Mozambican timber laws.

Scientists estimate that deforestation - caused by both the illegal timber trade and charcoal production - has made Mozambique more fragile to cyclones, the government estimates the losses due to this trade at billions of euros and institutions such as Mozambique's Institute of Social and Economic Studies warn that the funds obtained help finance attacks by Islamist rebels, such as those that have taken place since 2017 in Cabo Delgado.